Ranking The 5 Transformers Movies, From The Lowest To The Highest Grossing In S'pore

In 2015, the powers that be at Hasbro had grand plans for their Transformers movie franchise: four movies in the next decade. They even hired a crack team of A-list Hollywood scribes — including Daredevil showrunner Steven S DeKnight and The Walking Dead creator Robert Kirkman — to map out the narrative game plan.

That was the plan.

But then something happened: 2017’s Transformers: The Last Knight under-performed at the global box-office. The five Transformer movies — all directed by Michael Bay — have collectively made over US$4.4 billion (S$6.02 bill) worldwide, but The Last Knight took home the least dough of US$605 million.

This led to Paramount Pictures, Hasbro’s movie partner, to yank the seventh Transformers movie from its 2019 schedule. The future of the franchise is in doubt. Now all hopes are pinned on the spin-off Bumblebee, opening this week.

If the Hailee Steinfeld-starring adventure does well, it can be the beginning of a new series. If not….well, we’ll talk about that when we get there. Meanwhile, let’s see which Transformers movie made the most at the local box-office, and which one made the least.

Box-office figures: UIP; figures adjusted for inflation

1/5

1/5

Ranking No. 5: Transformers: The Last Knight (2017)

BO: $6.15 million/Rotten Tomatoes: 15%/Running time: 154 min

An evil Optimus Prime, the fusing of the Arthurian lore, and Anthony Hopkins saying “Dude” weren’t enough save the series from the dreaded franchise fatigue. Its underwhelming global earnings (half of Age of Extinction’s US$1.1 billion global haul), making it the lowest grossing entry) forced the studio to scrap plans a 2019 follow-up and just focus on the spin-off Bumblebee. So much for leaving things on a high note: Director Michael Bay should’ve just quit two movies ago.

2/5

2/5

Ranking No. 4: Transformers (2007)

BO: $8.77 million/Rotten Tomatoes: 35%/Running time: 144 min

This marked the beginning of Shia LaBeouf’s (brief) leading-man stint as well as Megan Fox’s stormy working relationship with Bay. Even though Fox, then 20, was playing a high school teen, that didn’t stop Bay from sexualising her with lingering, lecherous shots. But that’s how Bay rolls: He “films women in a way that appeals to a 16-year-old sexuality”, LaBeouf famously once said. A decade on, the metal-morphing SPFX still rocks. So why did it lose the Best Visual Effects Oscar to The Golden Compass?

3/5

3/5

Ranking No.3: Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen (2009)

BO: $9.76 million/Rotten Tomatoes: 19%/Running time: 150 min

The Bayhem gets more massive… and messier. This time the Autobots and Decepticons drag the Middle East into their never-ending feud (might as well, right?) — some Cybertronian holy relics hidden in the Pyramid of Giza and Petra! The exotic locations are a nice distraction to the exhaustingly repetitive metal-on-metal fracas. Bay himself wasn’t too thrilled with the movie either: He called it “crap”, blaming the awfulness on the writers’ strike. Meanwhile, it’s a franchise wrap for Miss Fox!

4/5

4/5

Ranking No.2: Transformers: Age of Extinction (2014)

BO: $10.6 million/Rotten Tomatoes: 18%/Running time: 165 min

In this soft reboot (co-produced by the Chinese government-run China Movie Channel), Mark Wahlberg takes over LaBeouf as the lead, as a wannabe inventor drawn into a conspiracy which sees him getting chased by a sinister black ops group, a resurrected Megatron, and a Cybertronian bounty hunter called Lockdown, and all they end up in Hongkong. Or something like that. The heavy-metal action is cool and confusing as usual, but at 15 minutes shy of three hours, it’s waaay too long.

5/5

5/5

Ranking No.1: Transformers: Dark of the Moon (2011)

BO: $11.8 million/Rotten Tomatoes: 35%/Running time: 154 min

And this is No. 1? Maybe it had something to do with fanboys eager to check out Fox’s replacement, Victoria’s Secret model — and Jason Statham’s girlfriend — Rosie Huntington-Whiteley. Or maybe it was the need to witness the mayhem (the wingsuit flying sequence; the destruction of Chicago; Huntington-Whiteley’s legs) in 3D that added to its coffers. What we need not see in 3D: Ken Jeong straddling LaBeouf (in his final Transformers tour) in the loo. That, and Keong ‘professing’ his love for Shuhua Milk.